12/11/2012

2 victims, gunman killed in Oregon mall shooting

Updated at 8:41 p.m. ET: A shooting at a mall in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday afternoon left three people dead, including the gunman, and at least one other person injured, police said.

Lt. James Rhodes of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said the gunman shot two people to death and also died, but he did not say how the gunman died. Rhodes said another person was wounded and sent to a hospital.

Rhodes said police do not believe there was a second shooter.

The shooting during the busy holiday shopping season caused panic in the mall.

A woman who answered the phone at Chipotle in the mall told NBC News that someone ran in and yelled, "It's a shooting, it's a shooting."

She said employees shut the restaurant doors. She said the mall was crawling with police.

Rhodes said some people had hidden in break rooms and bathrooms in the mall and that teams of police were working their way through the mall to bring them out.

A spokeswoman at Legacy Emanuel Hospital, one of two level-one trauma centers in the Portland area, told NBC News that no patients had been admitted as of 5:15 p.m. local time (8:15 p.m. ET) but that the hospital had been alerted that one victim could arrive by Life Flight.

KGW.com reported that the shooter was wearing a hockey mask, but it did not cite a source for the information.

Witness Amber Tate told KATU of Portland that she was standing in the parking lot when she spotted a gunman wearing a camouflage shirt and what looked like a bulletproof vest. Tate said he looked like a teenager.

Pedro Garcia, 24, told the Oregonian that he was headed to Panera Bread Co. to buy sandwiches when he heard at least six shots.

"I could smell the gunpowder," Garcia said. "That's what pretty much what made me run."